The CW’s Powerpuff Girls reboot has its Professor Utonium and a new title.
Donald Faison of Scrubs will play the super-powered girls’ eccentric creator in the upcoming pilot, although the title will now simply be Powerpuff.
Donald Faison’s role on Powerpuff
In the beloved Cartoon Network series, the eccentric Professor Utonium creates “The perfect little girl,” utilizing “sugar, spice, and everything nice.” He then adds the powerful “Chemical X” into the mix.
The result is Bubbles, Buttercup, and Blossom, three pint-size girls possessing super-strength, flight, and various other superpowers.
Utonium is portrayed as a quirky father figure who doesn’t seem to mind the various escapades the girls get into while aiding them with his scientific work.
The CW version comes from Oscar-winner Diablo Cody and updates the “Girls” to now be in their twenties and dealing with the childhood they lost fighting super-villains.
Cast as Utonium is Donald Faison, best known for his role in the long-running NBC comedy Scrubs.
The official press released describes the part as “quirky, debonair, and a pinch narcissistic. He is a scientific genius who is immensely proud of the three extraordinary girls he created in his lab. Staring down a midlife crisis, he is determined to repair his relationships with his now-adult daughters.”
No longer girls
The news comes alongside the reveal that the show is dropping the “Girls” from the title for simply Powerpuff.
This makes sense as the girls label no longer fits the trio, who will be played by Dove Cameron, Chloe Bennett, and Yana Perrault.
Bennett, who played Daisy Johnson aka Quake on Marvel’s Agents of SHIELD, will be Blossom, now an advanced genius trying to repress the trauma of all the years fighting crime.
Dove Cameron, who won an Emmy for the Disney Channel series Liv & Maddie and the hit Descendants franchise, plays Bubbles, who is now much tougher than her childish persona. Cameron had co-starred with Bennett in Agents of SHIELD as deadly super-speedster Ruby Hale.
Broadway veteran Perrault plays Buttercup, the rebellious fighter who now wants to live a quiet life.
The plot is the girls have long distanced themselves from each other but must reunite to face a new threat. The series had been announced in August of 2020, with the CW ordering a pilot in February.
Filming is set to begin as the usual “pilot season” has been affected by the coronavirus pandemic. If it were picked up, it would likely premiere on the CW in 2022.
The pilot is one of several for the CW, including adapting the DC Comics heroine Naomi and a reboot of the cult sci-fi series The 4400. Also, an upcoming episode of Black Lightning will be a “backdoor pilot” for a series on supporting character Painkiller.
The addition of Faison shows the CW is serious about making this unique update of the Powerpuff franchise work to let the former “Girls” fly high on the network.